Nightmare War
by JOD 2.0
Summary: Part two in the "Power Sign" series. An age-old war has ravaged the home world of the Tester. Can the Mobians help win back the planet? Or is the galaxy going to fall to the old Nightmares again? Read "The strengths of love and friendship" first. Chp 5 up
1. Firey Rainbows

**I'm back! And this one's gonna be goood! Got the first chapter here for you. Enjoy enjoy enjoy!!**

**Nightmare War**

**Chapter one, Fiery rainbows**

The fireball thundered earthwards, shedding debris as it went. To any onlookers it would have appeared to be a meteor, an enormous lump of rock falling from the infinite vastness of space. But very few people are out at 4 AM, so the phenomenon went unnoticed.

As it approached the ground, the fireball picked up more and more speed, until it appeared to be nothing more then an orange streak in the sk, a rainbow of fire against the starless night.

The fireball met the ground at an angle, sending it skimming across the field like a stone across a pond and wherever it came into contact with the earth it left a scar of burnt grass and flying dirt. With each bounce there came a deadening crash that shook the leaves from the trees, but with nobody around to hear it, it might have well landed silent.

The object finally came to rest, flames still licking hungrily around it. The burning raged on, never ceasing, it seemed it would never stop, that it would burn forever at its resting place in the valley.

For a full hour nothing happened, the fire just lay into the meteor, burning itself out. Eventually the flames dwindled, and finally smouldered and dyed completely. As smoke rose into the dark sky something stirred within the meteor, something living, something trying to get out. The meteor, it seemed, was a pod of some kind.

Suddenly the pod exploded, sending shards of molten rock flying every which way. The force of the explosion sent hordes of dust and dirt leaping from their settlements, they hung in the air for a time, like a solid smoke. A gust of wind caught hold of the dust cloud and sent it off towards the blood-red ocean in the distance, the dirt and dust dancing in eerie patterns.

What the dust revealed was not pleasant to look at and even worse to meet in a dark alley. Long, talon-like claws curved from a disfigured, black hand. Two bony arms, each one covered with short, spiked horns, connected themselves to an armour-plated torso. On the palm of each hand was a circle, barley visible against the darkened skin. This was sign of the power manipulators, carried by only the most powerful creatures, enabling the owner the ability to use the very particles in the air to their advantage.

A forked tongue slid over two sets of dagger like teeth, stained with the blood of a thousand helpless victims. Where the lips should have been, however, there was nothing, the roots of the teeth were visible.

At the back of the creatures head were more spikes. The short and strait points covered the entire back of the creature from its head to its long, muscular legs. The revolting monster looked like the creation of some warped and twisted cartoonist, the sort of creature that looks like it's out to get someone… that was exactly what it was out for.

All across the surface of Turpell, homeworld to the Cantamates and legendary warrior _The Tester_, thousands upon thousands of these pods crashed to the gound and from each emerged a monster. This was an army, an army with invasion in their sights, blood on their teeth and murder in their minds.

It didn't take long for word to reach the Tester, but it was still too late. The Cantamates were great fighters and had held their own against the invaders but for every enemy defeated, another was waiting at the sidelines. His race was being overwhelmed and he knew it wouldn't be long before they fell.

It was clear what had to be done, for if the Cantamates fell, the invaders (who had fought against them many times but never with such power) would then set their sights on the other creatures of the galaxy.

The Tester turned his ship towards the place he knew he would find the only warriors that could best him, and therefore the only hopes to save his home and the rest of the galaxy… and blasted full speed toward Planet Mobius.

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**Well there's the start of it. Will our heros side with the Tester? Well of course they will! I wouldn't have a story otherwise now would I? R&R please guys, cheerio!**

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	2. Just a day's work

**Well thank you to all 3 people who bothered reading chapter one so far. At least someone appreciated the effort! Oh well, anyway chapter two...**

**Nightmare War**

**Chapter two, Just a day's work**

An enormous, noisy thing hung in the sky above Green Hill. The thing was also long, shiney and immensely well armed. Glistening cannons and turrets covered almost every inch of the incredible feat of engineering. Sat in the cloudless blue the ship would have looked beautiful had it not been for one thing, the large red logo plastered on the side of the silver bridge deck… and just about everywhere else it would fit.

This was the Egg Eagle. At a rough guess Dr Eggman's fifteenth flagship, as well as one of his better ideas for names. Following the recent flop that was the "Egg Carrier mark IV" the doctor had decided to be a bit more creative.

The party piece of the Eagle was the now traditional giant cannon, this time mounted on the bottom of the ship. When activated the cannon converted particals from the air and forced them at incredible speed through a transformer which converted the partials into a devastating beam of green that was capable of transforming a whole city to rubble.

There was just one problem. As usual Eggman had planned to use the seven Chaos Emeralds to supply power to the weapon. And, also as usual, he didn't have them.

"Two Emeralds approaching fast!" Called a service robot from its control panel. The metallic squeak made the Doctor cringe, he really should fix that voice box, and preferably soon.

"Gah!" growled Eggman "What do you mean two Emeralds approaching? You mean we're approaching two Emeralds! You useless bucket of bolts!". A vein pulsed on his forehead.

"No sir. Two Emeralds approaching us" The robot turned his monitor so that Eggman could see. On the readout two dots were clearly visible on the radar, moving very quickly towards the left side of the Eagle. Every second the dots moved closer and as it got closer, sweat appeared on Eggman's forehead.

"Oh no!" he screamed, banging his fists repeatedly on his control panel "No, no, no! Why is it every time I try to start the Eggman empire those two ruin it for me! It's not fair!" He buried his face in his hands.

The robot tilted its head to one side. "With permission sir" it said quizzically "which two are these?".

Eggman's two personal servant droids, Dicco and Bocco, appeared afrom nowhere to stand beside their master. "Sonic and Tails" they said as one.

Eggman growled and peered through his fingers. The doctor's eyes were blazing with anger. "As soon as they come into range" he bellowed "FIRE!!". He regained his self-control twiddled his moustache in that way all evil scientists do and laughed evilly "and prepare the secret weapon".

**A short distance away...**

The X-Tornado sped towards the Egg Eagle, the newly installed sound buffers allowing the plane to charge along without making more then a low hum. The white Chaos Emerald glowed in the nosecone, providing the power to the duel thrusters that worked the engines. In the cockpit Tails was trying to explain this to his passenger… to little avail.

"I'm sorry Tails" Cosmo said for the third time, "but I really don't understand what you're talking about.". If Cosmo wanted to be completely honest she didn't much care either, but she didn't want to hurt Tails' feelings, so she decided to keep her mouth shut.

Tails shrugged. "Never mind Cosmo, don't worry about it" he pushed some more speed from the plane. "You OK Sonic?" he called.

Outside, on the wing of the plane, Sonic was crouching with one knee on the wing, in one hand was the blue Emerald. Sonic's other hand was holding onto the lip of the wing. "I'm good to go buddy" he called back. He had to shout so he could be heard as most of words were taken by the wind.

Sonic and Tails had seen Eggman's ship pass over the Mystic Ruins and immediately set off after him, glad for the thrill of battling the evil genius again. It had been far too quiet lately, they wanted some action. Cosmo and Amy had both asked to tag along but there was only room for one passenger, and Tails always picked Cosmo.

"We're coming into range!" cried Tails excitedly, "You remember what to do Sonic?"

"You bet!" Sonic's grin widened "You fly me over the front of the ship, I jump off, run to the other end and find a vent to slam-dunk the Emerald in and BOOM!" Sonic looked towards the Eagle and smrked "Eggman on toast!"

"Right!" Tails was practically bouncing on his seat at this point. "Hold on Cosmo! HERE WE GO!!" Tails thrust the control forward and all three friends wooted as the tiny X-Tornado powered towards the huge Egg Eagle.

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**It'll never go that smoothly surely? It never does! Laters!**

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	3. Secret weapAGH!

**That's right my 4 or so readers! I am not dead! I've just been hiding in a cave somewhere on the Isle of Man! Basicly my computer broke, I lost the file, found the file again, dropped it down the back of the sofa, blah, blah and so on. But I'm here now and this is the next chapter! I've decided I'm going to make this all less seirious then the last story, I prefer writing ore humerous and people like reading it more... well I do anyway, enjoy!  


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bNightmare War**

**Chapter three, Secret weap-AGH!**

Scores of robots poured out of the Egg Eagle's hold. They glinted against the bright sky as they powered towards the X-tornado. Upon each shoulder the robots had the Eggman symbol, emblazed on the metal like branding on cattle. Instead of arms the droids housed deadly blasters. These were R-scouts, low-level security defence systems.

From his perch on the plane's wing Sonic chuckled and grasped tightly at something in his fist. The moment he was close enough he launched towards the nearest robot. He landed and, counting in his head, timed his jump just as another droid let fly with a hail of shots, blowing to shreds the robot upon which Sonic had been perched only a second ago. He used the momentum to power his foot clean through another bot, the resulting explosion catching several of its comrades.

As Sonic made a show of obliterating Eggmans robots, Tails was pumping away at his triggers, firing at anything that moved and not necessarily hitting everything he aimed at. Laser bolts pounded into the shields, bursting like deadly fireworks. Cosmo was operating her own cannon, her own lasers pounded into the attacking droids like knives through butter. It was clear who the better shot of the pair were and it wasn't Tails.

Down below, Knuckles was perched on a rock, surveying the battle high above. He had originally asked to go along but Tails had said no, on the grounds that he and Sonic would try to outdo each other and forget the plan. He stared upwards as the hordes of Robots battered at Sonic and the X-tornado and tried to pick out how many were left. In the end he gave up and sat down sulkily. He looked up again and was just in time to see a bright red laser flying in his general direction. Knuckles dived off the rock just in time, as the laser pounded into the rock; the resulting explosion sent a mass of burning debris in all directions. The echidna stood up, brushed himself off, and decided he was probably safer at home.

Back up in the sky, a sudden and complete silence filled the air. The robots had stopped firing and were just sitting theere, not even so much as moving any more. Sonic settled himself back on the wing of the plane. He and Tails were exchanging puzzled looks when a loud crackle of radio static pierced their ears. The noise was followed by a more familiar sound as the defence droids relaying Dr Eggman's voice at the same time, creating a kind of demented echo in the wind.

"Well, well, well" cackled the robots. "It seems you're winning again doesn't it? I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I'll bet fox boy has some plan to blow me up… again. Well it won't happen this time!" the robot Eggman voice thing laughed. "Because I… have a secret weapon". This last bit was said with all the bone-chilling menace of a particularly cheesy villain in a James Bond film crossed with a chicken.

"Another one?" groaned Sonic, Tails and Cosmo in unison. "He's probably got more secret weapons then non-secret" laughed Tails. It had gotten to the point where all three had lost track of the amount of _Secret weapons_ Eggman had thrown at them. Cosmo couldn't help wandering to herself why Eggman was so bad at keeping secrets, and building effective weapons for that matter.

The Eggman talking robot things carried on their droning speech, however by this point nobody was really paying them any attention. Tails squeezed off a few rounds to dispose of a few and minimise the distortion, but other then that they may as well have not been there.

It was also about this point Sonic realised he was probably not going to find out anything about this almighty Big Bang Egg Manipulator, or whatever the Doctor had decided to call it this time. This was partly due to the fact he and Tails always blew it up too quickly to really have a look, partly due to the fact half of them didn't work in the first place and partly due to Eggman's total lack of ability to resist making endless new versions of Metal Sonic that looked, and indeed exploded, the exact same as the last. Mostly though, Sonic was given the idea by the very large, very fast moving ball of fire that was advancing on the Eagle and didn't seem to have any idea of what breaks were.

To say the explosion that occurred when the fireball hit the airbase was spectacular would be like saying the Roman Empire was "sort of big". There was a blinding flash of red, purple and even green flames as various bits of the Eagle were ripped apart and exploded like fireworks. It was odd, but hey, the Doc probably had suck a load of fireworks on to make his loss look cool should Sonic beat him again.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO" screamed Eggman in that over dramatic way he always did when his ships crashed. None of Sonic's team ever figured out how he survived them all, given he seemed to spend more time screaming then escaping, which would normally be considered the logical thing to do.

Right now, though, the fireball was taking the attention of everyone who wasn't exploding. It hammered into the ground, spraying debris and mud all around. Once the smoke and dust had cleared there was a large crater in the eath, and in the middle sat what seemed to be a giant Cricket Ball with a nail sticking out of the top.

Tails landed the plane and soon the three friends were staring into the crater. "What d'you think Tails?" Sonic asked, "looks like your kind of thing". He flicked a stone into the hole, it bounced off the thing with a metallic clang.

Before Tails could give his answer, which rang along the lines of "How the heck should I know?"the gound began to crumble at the edge of the crater. Sonic and Tails jumped back, but Cosmo wasn't quick enough. She screamed as she lost her footing and began o topple into the pit.

"Cosmo!" Tails yelled and dived in after her. He caught her around the waist and used his tails to low their decent until they landed, fairly softly, on the ground inside the crater. Sonic was literally by their side in a heartbeat, being Sonic of course. Tails put Cosmo down and made sure sh was ok.

There was a brilliant flash of red light which dazzeled the friends, at first they thought it was Shadow, being inconsiderate with his teleportation again, but when they blinked the stars from their eye, someone they really didn't expect to see was there, in fact, two were.

Knuckles lay sprawled out on the floor, his eyes had rolled back in his head and he was clearly unconscious and sporting a lovely looking bump on his head. Seemd he hadn't been quite quick enough an got caught in the… the whatever it was' shockwave. The more interesting arrival, however, was a cat. A cat they didn't want to meet in a hurry. It was the Tester

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**Yay! Wow that took a while eh? Really sorry. Please Review! Even if it's to have a go at me about taking forever or whatever takes your fancy! 'till next time!!!**


	4. It is here!

**Actually done two within the week! Wow! Not a brilliant one to be honest but it's more a filler.  


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Nightmare War**

**Chapter Four, It is here!**

The Tester stumbled forward, opened his mouth as in to speak and collapsed on the ground. He lay still, motionless.

Tails and Sonic ran to the cat and picked him up. "Cosmo!" Tails called "Run to cream's house! Tell her mother we're coming!" Cosmo didn't move. "c'mon" Sonic yelled to her "Quickly!" Cosmo remained still.

"Tails" she said, so quiet it was barley audible. "Tails, that's the tester. He killed you… he tried to kill us all" She still hadn't moved. Cosmo stayed routed to the spot as Tails and Sonic passed her, talking to each other. She wandered lowly after them, not sure weather or not she could believe her eyes.

They bumped into Espio on the way there and he ran ahead to alert Cream's mother. When they got there she had already prepared for their arrival. She had got out her medical supplies and bandages.

"Quickly, get him inside" she ushered Sonic and Tails inside and the pair layed the Tester out on the table. Sonic and Tails stood back as the rabbit set about trying to bring the Tester round.

"This isn't good" tails observed rather obviously "If the Tester has been hurt, that means something VERY dangerous is out there and whatever it was probably followed him here. But what could do such a thing?" he held his chin thoughtfully.

Sonic was about to respond when Knuckles burst in. He was swaying as he ran and had new lumps on his head. "BIG, SCARY THING!!" he squealed, and promptly collapsed. He lay still for a moment and mumbled to himself, something about a squirrel if Sonic heard right.

Sonic groaned and propped Knuckles up in a chair "when aren't they big and scary? We'd better get down there" He jumped on the spot for a while, hyping himself up. "This is gonna rock! C'mon!!"

"Hold on!" Tails called as Sonic dashed of, he ran back quickly "If this is what took out the Tester, we're gonna need the Chaos Emeralds to even stand a chance". Tails thought for a moment. "I'll run and get them seeing as we know where they are. You get down there!"

Sonic didn't even bother replying, he just ran off so quickly he left a blue streak behind him and blew books from their shelves. Tails apologised on Sonic's behalf and dashed off to get to the Emeralds. He liked to formulate plan at times like this but he had no idea what he would find when he returned, so he would just have to improvise.

Tails ran back to his workshop and grabbed the 5 Emeralds he had there. Hopefully Sonic hadn't dropped his one and the one in the X-Tornado would still be there. Tails was about to dash from the workshop when he had an idea. He had recently repaired the original Tornado. It would be far quicker to take that then to run. He jumped into the pilot seat and started up the engine.

"Tails!" Tails heard a voice call, he turned in his seat and saw Cosmo running towards the plane. She jumped into the passenger set and strapped herself in. "Don't even think about telling me to stay behind" he said defiantly "I'm not letting you get yourself hurt by whatever is down there" she smiled at Tails and thee fox couldn't help but smile back at her.

When the Tornado arrived where Knuckles had seen the monster, Tails and Cosmo could see two figures standing, puzzled, on the ground below. The first was Sonic and the second was Shadow. It seemed the landings hadn't gone unnoticed. Tails landed the plane and he and Cosmo joined the hedgehogs.

Shadow answered their questions before they asked it. "We don't know where it is" he admitted. "For all we know = oh THERE it is!"

The salivating creature had jut shown up and it didn't do much for the eyes. It almost staggered towards the friends.

Sonic shrugged "Is that it? Doesn't look tough to me" He positioned himself to leap "watch this!" he lunged towards the waiting monster, spinning in his signature spindash. The monster simply stood and waited…

Nobody saw what happened next, it was so quick. One moment Sonic was flying at the monster, the next h was lying on his back in the dirt twenty feet away. He propped himself up on his elbows, sratched his head and fainted. It was quite an odd sight.

"Did he really think it would be that easy?" Everyone spun round to see the Tester advancing on them, he stood next to Shadow and eyed Soni's form with contempt.

"Well, you're up then?" said Shadow simply, "good. Seems I'm going to need you on this one" He turned to Tails and Cosmo. "Stand back, I don't think you can help here, you'll just get in the way… are those the Chaos Emeralds?" Tail nodded "good". Shadow took them from Tails an turned back to the cat. "ready?"he asked.

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**You know the drill by now. I''ll be back son with something a bit better! Later!**


	5. Five Against One

**I won't make excuses, I've just been far too busy and I also kinda forgot... well actually I am kinda making excuses huh? Oh well. You might want to re-read the rest of this story, given that I took so long getting this one up you've probably forgoten most of what little plot-line I'd got so far.**

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**Nightmare War**

**Chapter five, Five Against One**

"Ready?" he asked.

The Tester nodded. "Then let's go" Shadow continued. He was about to launch himself at the thing in front of him when he remembered hat had happened to Sonic. He caught himself in the nick of time and tuned to the Tester with a look halfway between a quizzical frown and the opening for a postbox.

"How" he said slowly and ever so slightly stupidly "How exactly do we fight this thing? As far as I can make out it'll skin us alive if we're not careful"

If it's possible for a cat to look taken aback, that's exactly how the Tester looked. "Well, like this of course" he said, holding his hand out towards the salivating monster. A steady beam of energy shot from his hand. There was a flash, a loud bang and then nothing.

The Tester had just enough time to say "Ah" before his enemy vanished, re-appeared in front of him and launched him across the field. He smashed into the upper branches of a tree and began to topple out. He hung in the air for what seemed like a minute before gravity remembered itself and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing up there. He crashed to the ground and lay still and silent.

Shadow was next. He just managed to avoid the beast's claws, only to be caught in the chin by it's forearm. Shadow flew in the opposite direction and skid across the ground, crashing into some undergrowth. Shadow lay still with his feet could be seen poking up from inside a bush.

Cosmo gasped in horror as the rancid creature turned to face her. It took a slow step towards her and she was rooted to the floor with sheer fright. Tails jumped in front of her, ready to defend Cosmo with everything he had.

Something small and colourful torpedoed out of the sky and crashed headlong into the thing. It was about as effective as poking an elephant with a stick but it did cause the monster to pause and that seemed to be enough for whoever had decided to help the guys out. The creature stumbled, staggered and swung at thin air.

There was a horrid sounding smack as contact was made with the invisible adversary. Espio dropped like a stone next to the colourful flying thing, which turned out to be Charmy. Espio was lifted by the neck and held aloft; he kicked and struggled but as the air was squeezed from him he was drained of strength.

Tails seized his chance while the monster wasn't paying attention and charged forward. He put all his weight behind his punch and Espio was dropped to the floor again. The creature doubled over and clutched (what Tails assumed to be) its stomach,

Tails swung again and again, pounding the monster to the ground; it stayed down, quivering on the floor. Tails looked down at it and almost gasped out loud. The creature had clutched itself so quitckly and with so much force that it had stabbed itself through the chest with its talons. Tails could see the tips poking from its back.

The Tester and Sonic had managed to pull themselves up and hobbled over to where Tails stood. Sonic leant against Tails' shoulder to keep himself upright.

"How… did… you… do… that?" he managed to say between pants. He sat down heavily and clutched at his own stomach, groaning quietly to himself.

"I forgot to mention" the Tester said shakily, covering a black eye with his hand. "they have weak stomaches and don't armour them, well one Miles"

"Tails" corrected Tails. "How come they don't cover their own weakest points?" it had never made sense to him why all the huge robots, monsters (and in one odd case a giant mutated sunflower) never bothered to over the one bit of them that he or Sonic could actually do some harm to.

"I don't know" the Tester admitted "but to be quite honest I wouldn't care to give them the hint" he tried to smirk sarcasticly, decided it wasn't worth the pain in his jaw and went back to wobbling.

"So what is that thing?" Cosmo asked quietly, gripping Tails' wrist for comfort.

"That…" the Tester growled seriously "_was_ a scout"

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**Hope you enjoyed it! R&R por favor! I'll do my best to get some more up in the next few days since I've got some free time and not a whole lot of coursework to do at the moment, laters lads'n'lasses!**


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